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galaad2 writes "Want to own the real castle that may have inspired the legend of Dracula? The Transylvanian castle associated with Vlad the Impaler, who may have been part of the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, is on sale for £40 million ($77 million). Bran Castle, near the historic city of Brasov, in central Romania, draws 450,000 visitors a year because of its association with 15th-century Prince Vlad Tepes III. (Wikipedia points out that Bran Castle's ties to Vlad are weak and disputed.) The local town council has been offered first refusal; they have 30 days to review the offer and then the property will be put on the market."

In the interest of spreading real news, I'll try to clarify things a bit.

The castle was donated to an old Romanian queen by the local city. Comunists came and took it, now the royal family got it back as a donation. The Romanian Culture Ministry has a clause in that donation act that they are to be the first to be notified in case it's available for sale and they have the right to purchase it back first. The Royal Family didn't notify the Culture Ministry yet, so they can't officially sell it because the Culture Ministry hasn't refused to purchase it yet.

The whole thing looks a bit like a scam from the Royal Family to increase the value of the castle. Apropos, the castle is the most major Romanian tourist site, it's very beautiful and it makes something like 10 milion Euro/year, with about 6 milion Euro/year expenses.

I've seen a report on this story last night, including an interview with the Minister of Culture and he said that as far as he's concerned he will refuse to puchase it.
Also I believe that the castle will go to the city of Brasov as that was the wish of the royal family.
I'm not to sure about all of this as I wasn't really paying attention to the TV.

Comunists came and took it, now the royal family got it back as a donation.

Yeah, it was the Communists who kicked the old man [wikipedia.org] out of the castle; he lived in New York City for a while and then settled down in Rio de Janeiro. No word yet if he wants his old castle back. It might suck for the royal family if he did show up.

You are right in saying that it's a scam. But the castle is not the most major Romanian tourist site, far from it, and the actual yearly income is something around a 300.000 Euro, nowhere near 10 million.In my opinion, the state should pass. There is no particular reason that it should own this castle, as no matter who will buy it will have to keep it opened to tourists. But, as you said, it is just a scam by the owners together with corrupt County Council members to swindle the state out of an outrageous a

"The local authorities of the Brasov county will by the world-famous Bran Castle for 60 million euro and will get the money by leasing with a 10-year loan from an Austrian bank. The move comes eight months after the rightful owner of the castle, now known as "Dracula's castle", Dominic Habsburg, got it back in a retrocession process."

Seriously, dubious connection to Vlad aside, the castle does have a fascinating history and has connections to a variety of royals (and Bram Stoker). It's also a boon to the local economy and a beautiful castle.

Not sure if that makes it worth $70 million. But it's certainly got some value outside of its Vlad connection.

There's the ruins of one he got some Turkish landowners to build, too. The remains of it overlook the Arges river and it's a bit of a slog to get to it (1500-odd steps). Legend says that he worked rebellious Boyars to death building it.http://www.draculascastle.com/html/poenari.html [draculascastle.com]

There's no real link between the vampire and vlad. Emily Gerard in an article that stoker read, wrote that Dracula was a Romanian word for the devil. So stoker used it. This is well documented, and Elizabeth Miller, who is finishing up Stoker's notes for the novel for publication, has researched this widely.
As for the castle, there's a good chance that the historical dracula stayed there, but it was never a place he lived in the fort at Poenari IS well documented as his home, but it is a ruin, and far fro

It's a castle, right? It must have been built to defend against aggressors. So buy the castle and declare it an independant state. All the benefits of Sealand (except fishing), but with better views and less rusting.

Ideal roommates should be able to appreciate trap doors, suits of armor used used for conversation pieces, abandoned rooms with misc furniture covered in white sheets, pictures of aristocrats with the eyes cut out (for spying), rotating bookshelfs, and indie rock.

The father of a colleque of mine bought a castle a decade ago. For 1 DM at that time.

Its a lot smaller than this particular one, but after a decade of rebuilding and fixing stuff, its still only maybe 25% finished. They ARE a bitch to keep warm (and to keep water out). But they make an impressive party-place.

As opposed to all those middle class and blue-collar folks with $77 Million lying around?

I meant that most people don't have 77 mil to spend without expecting to get something back. If the place would be likely to generate money a suitable organization coult probably get funding for developing it. As it stands now its pretty much only the people who have 77 mil spend, as opposed to invest.

Actually it is a tourist attraction making 4 millions euros a year in profit. Thats almost $8 million a year. The only people who are gonig to buy it are people who are going to run it as an attraction.

I think it is equally a waste of your money to buy this castle or $70 million worth of property in Second Life. However, if you were looking less for lucre and more for a sadomasochistic vampire to have all manner of unholy relations with you, then I'd heartily recommend Second Life. And if the translyvanian atmosphere isn't quite complete without a werewolf, well, they've got all manner of furry creatures ready to meet you.

Customs and immigration will continue to be an issue until Romania joins Schengen, which won't be for many years. Travelling from Schengen to non-Schengen countries still requires that one stand in a queue and show an EU identity card or passport. And though movement within the EU is theoretically unrestricted, the EU citizen must declare his intentions to stay longer than three months in a given foreign EU country to the local police, a rather annoying process.

Certainly nobody will buy this castle for making a profit. Do the math: 40 million pounds have to be spent. People pay 2.40 per entry. Thus you need 16.7 million entries to cover the acquisition costs (assuming the 450,000 visitors a year are all adults, a bit optimistic). Using this figure, it takes 37 years to pay off the initial investment - ignoring costs for running the castle, such as ongoing repairs, staff, etc.

Still, it would be cool to have that castle and enjoy eternal night life...

As someone pointed out above the castle makes 10 Million Euros a year and spends 6 Million on expenses so even if you paid back the 40 Million for repairs etc over 20 years you'd still be making a profit of 2 Million a year.

Certainly nobody will buy this castle for making a profit. Do the math: 40 million pounds have to be spent. People pay 2.40 per entry. Thus you need 16.7 million entries to cover the acquisition costs (assuming the 450,000 visitors a year are all adults, a bit optimistic). Using this figure, it takes 37 years to pay off the initial investment - ignoring costs for running the castle, such as ongoing repairs, staff, etc.

Still, it would be cool to have that castle and enjoy eternal night life...

Speaking of eternal night life, here's an even better idea. Every night throw a wild and massive party. Cover charge is 100 Euro per person. 500 Euro gets you your own room to host your own mini-party in true bacchanalian fashion. Or 2500 Euro gets you the dungeon for the evening. On Friday and Saturday, tasteful in-period costumes are mandatory (vampires okay, clowns not okay... rent 'em at the door if you forgot yours). It's like Disney Land but for mature audiences only. Have live DJ competitions where the audience votes and the top prize for the winning DJ is 10% of the take from cover charges or something like that.

It'd be a hell of a blast until it gets shut down for some please-think-of-the-children reason.

Well, the castle has little to do with Vlad Tepes, actually. As for Bram Stocker, there's an idea he mostly drew his inspiration from the actions of Elizabeth Bathory.:) You should look more into the subject of this castle. It is beautiful, indeed, but you would really have the wrong expectations of it. Here's the story for those interested in this topic :http://wordsofabrokenmirror.blogspot.com/2006/09/b reaking-dracula-myth.html [blogspot.com]

I'm reading a really fascinating take on the Dracula legend right now, The Historian. I don't know if this castle is analagous to the one described in the book as the one he had his vassals build for him in the mountains of Romania to keep back the Ottomans. But in the book (which is fictionalized history), it says he didn't live in that castle for very long - he abandoned it when the Turks got too close.

please. your scientifcally-historic mumbo jumbo has no place in a discussion about *vampires*

Now, we can hardly decide two months of imprisonment makes it Dracula's Castle:)

you obviously don't know the first thing about Dracula. that's where he became a vampire and started to drink the blood of the castle dwellers. how do you think he escaped? thats' right, he turned into a bat after drinking enough blood, thus levelling up, and flew right

I've been to a few, and they were all advertised as being "the real one". The joke among Romanians is apparently that every castle over there belonged to some Vlad this or that, and because that Bram Stoker has never been to Romania, there is no problem in claiming that it is Dracula's castle

The Castle in Bran *looks* the part. If Disney were to make a real castle, it would look like this. It is well located for access by train from all over the country. I'm not sure it would be a good investment as their door policy isn't exactly difficult to skip around.

Anyway, the castle at Poenari is the real deal, though it is difficult to get there. You have to climb up a very steep mountain side to actually get to the castle, sometimes you are watched by armed guards protecting a nearby Hydro plant or something. The guys had guns, I didn't ask. This castle really was the home of Vlad the Impaler and the slope you climb to reach it once had the decapetated heads of his victims strewn across it on spikes.

The castle itself is actually very small and nobody is ever going to make moey selling tours there (hence Bran is where the tours are sent). It is spooky and very, very cool. It is perched on a teeny tiny outcropping from the mountain and is a really fantastic experience , as I recounted here many years ago http://www.apj.co.uk/tales/vlad.htm#vlad [apj.co.uk].

Sorry to disappoint you but the real one is here [google.com]. As you can see there's not much left of it and it's not exactly hard to get to: it's just in the middle of Bucuresti. When it was built it was in the middle of the forest but afterwards the city grew around it. And even the little bit you see is not all from his time, you will have to go into the basement to see the original walls.

There's a photo of it in one of the McNally and Florescu books. It's on a steep mountainside and is in very rough shape -- pretty much just the main cylinder of the tower remains, and not all of that, and it wasn't very large to start with.

Quote from Hotnews.ro, a Romanian news site:The local authorities of the Brasov county will buy the world-famous Bran Castle for 60 million euro and will get the money by leasing with a 10-year loan from an Austrian bank. The move comes eight months after the rightful owner of the castle, now known as "Dracula's castle", Dominic Habsburg, got it back in a retrocession process.

It is really beautiful, and the surrounding village of Bran is extremely nice. The caste is quite small, but very nice, with small corridors, winding stairs, inner terraces and balconies, even a secret passage from Queen's room to King's room. All asymmetric, you can easily get lost in there. The entire thing is in mint condition, but heating in the winter must be a bitch.

As can traffic. A few hours after we left, the whole village got snowed in, and thousands of tourists couldn't leave as the roads were buried in half a metre of snow.

... thousands of them... MILLIONS of them!
At least that's what the estate agent, RM Renfield, had to say when I rang him about this the other day.
They also have a delightful property called Carfax Abbey over in Purfleet.